BOOKS
| Author | Title | Notes |
| Ackerman, Frank | Worst-Case Economics | A study of the economics of existential problems like financial collapse and climate change |
| Arbesman, Samuel | Overcomplicated: Technology at the Limits of Comprehension | |
| Banks, Ferdinand | The Political Economy of World Energy | |
| Baran, Paul | The Political Economy of Growth | A must read for students of dependency theory |
| Baran, Paul, and Paul Sweezy | Monopoly Capital | A classic that analyzes the power and influence of large oligarchies on the market economy |
| Beckerman, Wilfred | Economics as Applied Ethics | |
| Bellamy Foster, John | The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism | |
| Boltanski, Luc, and Eve Chiapello | The New Spirit of Capitalism | |
| Boulding, Kenneth | Evolutionary Economics | |
| Bowles, Samuel | The Moral Economy | An insightful book that challenges conventional notions of individuals’ responses to incentives and policy changes |
| Boyce, James | Economics for People and the Planet | |
| Brenner, Robert | Economics of Global Turbulence | |
| Chang, Ha-Joon | 23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism | Enough said? |
| Costanza, Robert, and Ida Kubiszewski | Creating a Sustainable and Desirable Future: Insights from 45 Global Thought Leaders | |
| Cowen, Tyler | Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation | |
| Daly, Herman | Steady-State Economics | A classic in the field of ecological economics. Popularizes some of the ideas of his teacher, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen |
| Daly, Herman, and John Cobb | For the Common Good | |
| Das, Satyajit | The Age of Stagnation | |
| Davis, Ann | Money as a Social Institution | |
| Ezrachi, Ariel, and Maurice Stucke | Virtual Competition | |
| Fitoussi, J., J. Stiglitz, and M. Durand | Measuring What Counts: The Global Movement for Well-Being | A critique of uncritical social measurement showcasing the problems with GDP |
| Foroohar, Rana | Makers and Takers | An incisive contrast between the true producers and the rent seekers, with useful examples |
| Friedman, Milton | Capitalism and Freedom | Immortal tract on the supposed benefits of a free market economic system. Consists of a series of independent essays. |
| Fullbrook, Edward | Market-value: Its measurement and metric, | |
| Galbraith, John Kenneth | Economics in Perspective | A relatively little-known book on the history of economic thought. Among the best on the topic. |
| Galbraith, John Kenneth | The Affluent Society | A timeless analysis of the social economics of capitalism. Juxtaposes private wealth and public squalor |
| Gare, Arran | The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization | |
| Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas | The Entropy Law and the Economic Process | A veritable masterpiece that cuts across the disciplines of economics, politics, philosophy, physics, and others. Enormously insightful and original |
| Graeber, David | Debt: the First 5,000 Years | A brilliant historical and anthropological perspective on the custom and eventual quantification of debt. Historical perspective on the relationship between credit and money |
| Graeber, David | Bull-shit Jobs | A highly relevant look at the types of jobs produced in late capitalist times. A critique of the social organization of work that pervades society today, and what it signifies for the future |
| Hall, C.A. | Energy Return on Investment | |
| Hamilton, Clive | Freedom Paradox, Affluenza, Requiem for a Species | |
| Harte, John | Maximum Entropy and Ecology | |
| Harvey, David | A Brief History of Neoliberalism | |
| Harvey, David | 17 Contradictions and the End of Capitalism | |
| Harvey, and Garnett | Future Directions for Heterodox Economics | |
| Haskel, Jonathan, and Stian Westlake | Capitalism without capital | |
| Hayek, Friedrich | The Road to Serfdom | A timeless tract that criticizes socialism from an Austrian perspective |
| Heilbronner, Robert | The Worldly Philosophers | A delightful exposition of the great minds who have, throughout history, been most influential in the formation of economic thought |
| Heinberg, Richard | The Party’s Over | A pessimistic account of the history of fossil fuel use in the world. |
| Hendry, David | Econometrics: Alchemy or Science | |
| Hirsch, Fred | The Social Limits to Growth | An original sociological study of the detrimental social effects of economic growth. |
| Huberman, Leo | Man’s Worldly Goods | Possibly the absolute best description of the West’s gradual transition from feudalism to capitalism. Brilliantly written |
| Hudson, Michael | The Bubble and Beyond | |
| Huff, Daryl | How to Lie with Statistics | A very slim volume but one of the best accounts of how data and statistics can be manipulated to mislead. |
| Huizinga, Johan | Homo Ludens | |
| Jackson, Tim | Prosperity without Growth | |
| Jacobs, Jane | Cities and the Wealth of Nations | A Tour de Force. Jacobs persuasively argues how properly planned cities are the true engine of economic growth. |
| Johnson, Dale L. | Social Inequality, Economic Decline, and Plutocracy: An American Crisis | |
| Kay, J., and M. King | Radical Uncertainty | |
| Keynes, John Maynard | The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money | An ingenious book written by the “father” of macroeconomics. The first to introduce the notion of multiple (non-full employment) equilibria in an economic system |
| Keynes, John Maynard | A Treatise on Probability | |
| Klein, Naomi | The Shock Doctrine | A brilliant exposition of how neoliberal capitalism exploits turmoil, instability, and natural disasters to consolidate wealth for the elite. Very interesting international case studies. |
| Kotz, David | The Rise and Fall of Neoliberal Capitalism | |
| Kuhn, Thomas | The Structure of Scientific Revolutions | Not an economics book at all, but contains very profound insights about the evolution of scientific knowledge with important implications for economics. A Classic. |
| Lakey, George | Viking Economics | |
| Lanier, Jaron | The Dawn of the New Everything | |
| LaTour, B. | We have never been modern | |
| LaTour, B. | Politics of Nature | |
| Lee, Frederick, and Bruce Cronin, Eds. | Handbook of Alternative Theories of Economic Development | |
| Levitt, Steven, and Stephen Dubner | Freakonomics | |
| Lewontin, Richard, and Richard Levins | Biology under the Influence | |
| Loye, David | Measuring Evolution | |
| Joan Martinez-Alier | Ecological Economics | A delightful read. A true history of ecological economic thought. Highly original. |
| Marx, Karl | Capital | Three volume highly critical and original analysis of the laws of motion of the capitalist system. A masterpiece by a visionary thinker. |
| Mau, Steffen | The Metric Society: On the Quantification of the Social | |
| Mayer-Schonberger, Victor, and Thomas Range | Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data | |
| Mazzucato, Mariana | The Value of Everything | Excellent work by an up-and-coming star in the field. Clearly articulates the main difference between productive and so-called “extractive” activity, and uses it to turn the traditional laissez-faire argument on its head. |
| Mirowski, Philip | More Heat than Light | |
| Mirowski, Philip & Edward Nik-Khah | The Knowledge We Have Lost in Information – The History of Information in Modern Economics | |
| Nelson, Richard, and Sidney Winter | An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change | |
| Piketty, Thomas | Capital in the 21st Century | A comprehensive historical analysis of inequality in the world’s leading countries. Rich in historical data and Figures, concluding with interesting policy implications. |
| Pilling, David | The Growth Delusion: Wealth, Poverty, and the Well-Being of Nations | |
| Polanyi, Karl | The Great Transformation | A classic in the field. The author analyzes how the market economy produces a “market society” that seeks to commodify everything. |
| Raworth, Kate | Doughnut Economics | |
| Saez, E., and G. Zucman | The Triumph of Injustice | |
| Schumacher, E.F. | Small is Beautiful | A comprehensive philosophical treatise on social, development, and environmental economics. Written in the mid-1970s but extremely far sighted |
| Schumpeter, J. | Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy | |
| Scitovsky, Tibor | The Joyless Economy | Original piece of work that contrasts the psychology of Americans and Europeans, finding that the former’s privileging of “comfort” over pleasure leads to unhappier lives despite higher living standards |
| Scott, James C. | Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States | |
| Sen, Amartya | Development as Freedom | A series of essays emphasizing the critically important role of individual freedoms as ingredients in development. His focus is on how freedom can be both cause and consequence of “capabilities” |
| Shepherd, W and DW Shepherd | Energy Studies | |
| Smith, Adam | An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations | The foundational work on market-based economics. Promotes free markets, but in a nuanced, non-ideological way. Brilliant writing |
| Stigler, Stephen | The seven pillars of statistical wisdom | |
| Sweezy, Paul | The Theory of Capitalist Development | A bit like the “Cliff Notes” to Marx’s Capital. Not as detailed as the former, but very clearly written and explained. |
| Taleb, Naseem Nicholas | Skin in the Game | |
| Vanderburg, Willem H. | Our Battle for the Human Spirit | |
| Veblen, Thorstein | The Theory of the Leisure Class | Brilliant and highly original critique of consumerist culture. |
| Weisburg, H. | Willful Ignorance | An interesting historical look at the development and origins of modern statistical thinking and analysis |
| Woo, Gordon | Calculating Catastrophe |